2013-01-24

Tonight's session didn't get a huge amount done - only Mongo's player and Gutboy's player could make it, and the fellas are always a little dungeon-shy when they're down to two people, and we spent a lot of time being distracted by my new pet kitten. So they decided to monkey around with the Wrist Replicator instead.

This is basically a high-tech equivalent of a ring of wishes - doesn't let you up stats or gain levels, just make stuff. But that stuff can be valuable. So, they went with giant diamond.

Personally I was hoping for "tons of gold" or whatever, and then the floor of their apartment building would collapse under the weight, and it would just be a solid mass, the city would claim it, etc. But the 2' wide diamond is portable enough, so they got to sell it. A reasonable amount of wealth was instantly gained, levels were gained, and a charge was blown. So that's my wish philosophy - don't pervert the wish, just let it happen, and deal with the logical consequences.

Fun facts:

a. Rufus is a greedy bastard. Gutboy's player forgot that, he wants a cut of everything. They should've left him behind.

b. There are no weird evil-lawyer-ish consequences to the "wish" here. You ask for it, you get it. The only thing they have to worry about is the physical impact of whatever they create appearing right in front of them.

c. It was an opportunity to drop a hook for Gusty's Red Demon adventure. How do you tow a 100' tall tank? Exactly the sort of logistics nightmare my players will totally ignore until they get there

d. They got greedy and didn't want to split the loot with the other henchies - so this is a secret from George and Razoe. Except that the blink dog is mysteriously a high-roller now. Here's the session report I sent to George & Razoe:

Rufus the blink dog now wears a top hat, expensive velvet cape, jeweled collar, and has both a butler and a gold-digger girlfriend named Ginger following him about.

CAST--------Mongo the Fighter (5)Gutboy the Cleric (5) and his blink dog Rufus II

Back in the city, Mongo and Gutboy discussed what to do next - and the urge to experiment with the wrist replicator recovered from the lair of Grolikus the Hive Mind was irresistable. Gutboy put the replicator on, and the blank face of the wristwatch-like device lit up with a swirling multitude of colors. A voice issued from the replicator: "Replicator ready for use. Please state desired item."

Gutboy thought for a moment, and then said "Diamond sphere, one foot radius." He and Mongo were stunned to see a sphere of pure diamond begin to form on the floor in front of them, and expand to a 1' radius. They covered the incredibly valuable artifact and took it to the Bank Inviolable, where the stunned bank manager wrote them a receipt ("diamond - estimated value: priceless") and placed it in the vault.

The pair then headed to the Bazaar Incomparable, seeking a jeweler. They came upon Leroy Frederickson, who went to the bank with them to examine the jewel. He reported that he could not afford to buy such an artifact himself, but offered to find a buyer for a 15% fee. The deal was struck, and a few days later Leroy instructed the pair to meet him at the home of Davrik Lerdingfast, an incredibly wealthy slumlord. They went to the appointment, bringing the blink dog Rufus with them.

Davrik's several acre estate was on the Street of Upright Living, overlooking the Voltaic Cataract. The four guards at the front gate were wearing filigreed plate mail and armed with submachine guns. After disarming the pair, they took them through a side entrance of the mansion into a waiting room. The walls were decorated with a wide variety of well-polished antique weapons - flintlock muskets, machine guns, long cylinders with various handles protruding from them, and a shield with a gun barrel sticking out of its center.

A flamboyant man wearing a smoking jacket entered the room and greeted the adventurers - it was Davrik Lerdingfast. He explained how he had earned his fortune on a lucky lanthanide strike in the Wastes, and then parlayed it into a real estate fortune using his connections with the Grand Vizier. His true passion, however, was for weapons - he told them he even had a non-functioning Steel Leviathan in his collection.

Davrik told them one of his artifacts was an enormous laser cannon whose focusing crystal had been scavenged long ago. Diamonds themselves usually didn't interest him, but a perfectly spherical diamond could be jury-rigged into the cannon's focusing mechanism. He told them he could give them more than just money - with his connections he could get citizenship papers for Mongo, Gutboy, and even the blink dog Rufus. They consulted with Leroy, who said that chopping the sphere up into individual diamonds would glut the market and they would only get a fraction of its value - the negotiations went on for a bit, and eventually the deal was settled at 3 citizenships and 20,000 gp (of which Leroy took 15%).

After the deal was settled, Davrik explained that he could use some experienced adventurers - the lone survivor of a failed froghemoth-hunting expedition in the Livid Fens had stumbled across a several-stories-tall tank in the swamps. Davrik wanted the tank brought back, and offered 10,000 gp if it could be cleaned up for display in his front yard, and 20,000 gp if it could be made operational. Gutboy told Davrik that it would take some time to deal with the logistics.

After the various deals were concluded, handshakes exchanged, and citizenship papers delivered, Gutboy and Mongo exercised their rights as citizens and purchased a 3 bedroom apartment on the Street of Students. Gutboy booby-trapped the door, and the two men and their dog agreed not to tell the others of their good fortune.

It was unclear how they'll explain away the fact that Rufus the blink dog now wears a top hat, expensive velvet cape, jeweled collar, and has both a butler and a gold-digger girlfriend named Ginger following him about.

2013-01-22

Canopic apes are undead created to act as tomb guardians. The mandrills, baboons, and chimps involved must have been hand-raised by the now deceased occupant of the tomb. They are then ritually disemboweled and burned, and the ashes placed within specially prepared canopic jars. The jars are artfully painted, and the lids are sculpted to resemble baboon heads and coated with gold leaf and lapis lazuli. Each intact jar is worth 100 gp to a collector of tomb loot once its occupying ape-spirit is slain.

When a tomb is guarded by canopic apes, anyone disturbing the jars or sarcophagus within the tomb will cause the apes to attack. The lids of the jars will be thrust aside as ape-shaped clouds of ash rise from within. Each jar contains a single such ash-ape.

In combat, undamaged apes will bite with ash fangs. Once they have been damaged, however, the canopic apes will pull fiery intestines composed of burning embers from their own bodies and use the entrails to whip foes.

The apes may only be damaged by magic weapons. Their ash bodies are immune to fire, laser, and plasma damage.